SketchUp Tutorial for Beginners – Modeling a House
In this video, learn to model a basic house in SketchUp with the push pull and offset tools!
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This guide is intended to give a basic guideline to follow in order to create an average 3D model using Google® SketchUp® (hereafter call SketchUp) as the modeling tool and DS Sketch3D. The following basic steps will be explained: Step 1. Download the plugins, components and material textures you need from the DS Sketch3D Download Site Step 2. The Protractor tool enables you to measure angles and set a precise angled guide line.As you use almost any tool in SketchUp, the Measurements box is waiting to accept a precise value. Beyond these tools, you can also combine the tips in this article with a little math to estimate building height accurately.
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To start, we’re going to draw the footprint of our house. If it’s a rectangle, you can just activate the rectangle tool by tapping the “R” key, then typing in the measurements of your house and hitting the enter key.
Now that we have the footprint of our house drawn, we’re going to use the push-pull tool to extrude our house into 3D. To do this, activate the push pull tool by tapping the “P” key, click once on the face of your house, then type in the height you’d like to see and hit the enter key. This will extrude your house at the height you entered.
Now that we have our house shape, we’re going to add slope to our roof. Probably the simplest way is to find the midpoint of your house, then use the line tool to draw a line up 3’. Once you’ve drawn your line up, you can draw lines to the two corners to create a face, then erase your center line so that the face you created is one uniform face. Then, use the push-pull tool to extrude this face to the back side of your house.
Remember that you can use inferencing as you do this to quickly draw this new shape to the back side of your house. You can click anywhere on the back side to do this.
Now what we’re going to do is use the offset tool to draw our eave. Remember, the offset tool will draw a series of lines based on the lines around the perimeter of a face. Activate the offset tool, click on your face, then type in a distance, like 6”, and hit the enter key. Now clean up the new face that was created, then push pull it so that you have a 12” overhang on one side, then extrude it back the other way so you have a 12” overhang on the other side.
Now, let’s add a door and a window. To do this, we’re going to use the rectangle tool to draw our door, then use the offset tool to create some trim. You can start by using the rectangle tool to draw your door – in this case, draw a rectangle that’s 3’ wide x 8’ high. Now, use the offset tool to draw 3” of trim. You can push-pull this trim 3” or so to give your trim some detailing.
Let’s do the same thing with our window – draw a window on the wall to the dimensions you’d like, then use the offset and push-pull tools to create your trim.
The other thing we can do now is create a chimney. To do this, I’m going to start by drawing one line right off our roof along the green axis. Once you’ve done this, you can use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle the size of our chimney. From here, you can either extrude this rectangle down using the push-pull tool, or you can just manually draw in lines along the blue axis that intersect with your roof to fill in the faces. This is probably a cleaner solution.
Finally, if you want to, you can come in and add materials to your house using the materials section in your tray. This is quite easy – just click on the material you’d like, then click on the face you’d like to color in order to apply the material.
One thing I’m going to do really quick is add a wainscot to our model. To do this, all I’m going to do is use the move tool in copy mode to copy the lines around the base of our model up about 3’0”. Simple double click on the face on the bottom to select the perimeter, deselect the face by “Shift Clicking,” and use the move tool in copy mode to move the perimeter lines up about 3’0”. Tipard all music converter 9 1 16. You can push pull it slightly to give it a little depth, then apply a brick material. You could even model a small cap in here if you wanted to.
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To start, we’re going to draw the footprint of our house. If it’s a rectangle, you can just activate the rectangle tool by tapping the “R” key, then typing in the measurements of your house and hitting the enter key.
Now that we have the footprint of our house drawn, we’re going to use the push-pull tool to extrude our house into 3D. To do this, activate the push pull tool by tapping the “P” key, click once on the face of your house, then type in the height you’d like to see and hit the enter key. This will extrude your house at the height you entered.
Now that we have our house shape, we’re going to add slope to our roof. Probably the simplest way is to find the midpoint of your house, then use the line tool to draw a line up 3’. Once you’ve drawn your line up, you can draw lines to the two corners to create a face, then erase your center line so that the face you created is one uniform face. Then, use the push-pull tool to extrude this face to the back side of your house.
Remember that you can use inferencing as you do this to quickly draw this new shape to the back side of your house. You can click anywhere on the back side to do this.
Now what we’re going to do is use the offset tool to draw our eave. Remember, the offset tool will draw a series of lines based on the lines around the perimeter of a face. Activate the offset tool, click on your face, then type in a distance, like 6”, and hit the enter key. Now clean up the new face that was created, then push pull it so that you have a 12” overhang on one side, then extrude it back the other way so you have a 12” overhang on the other side.
Now, let’s add a door and a window. To do this, we’re going to use the rectangle tool to draw our door, then use the offset tool to create some trim. You can start by using the rectangle tool to draw your door – in this case, draw a rectangle that’s 3’ wide x 8’ high. Now, use the offset tool to draw 3” of trim. You can push-pull this trim 3” or so to give your trim some detailing.
Let’s do the same thing with our window – draw a window on the wall to the dimensions you’d like, then use the offset and push-pull tools to create your trim.
The other thing we can do now is create a chimney. To do this, I’m going to start by drawing one line right off our roof along the green axis. Once you’ve done this, you can use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle the size of our chimney. From here, you can either extrude this rectangle down using the push-pull tool, or you can just manually draw in lines along the blue axis that intersect with your roof to fill in the faces. This is probably a cleaner solution.
Finally, if you want to, you can come in and add materials to your house using the materials section in your tray. This is quite easy – just click on the material you’d like, then click on the face you’d like to color in order to apply the material.
One thing I’m going to do really quick is add a wainscot to our model. To do this, all I’m going to do is use the move tool in copy mode to copy the lines around the base of our model up about 3’0”. Simple double click on the face on the bottom to select the perimeter, deselect the face by “Shift Clicking,” and use the move tool in copy mode to move the perimeter lines up about 3’0”. Tipard all music converter 9 1 16. You can push pull it slightly to give it a little depth, then apply a brick material. You could even model a small cap in here if you wanted to.
This should be a quick beginners-introduction of Sketchup for architects. I want to show you quickly how to make a 3D CAD model of a building using probably the easiest-to-learn software in the field of building architecture: SketchUp. Arcsoft™ – website builder 1 3 2013. This software can be downloaded for free from sketchup.com.
For now you are not supposed to have much previous experience in this software, all you need to do is go through this step-by-step guide and follow the instructions and of course a little practice afterwards. You will not need to read tons of boring theories preliminarily, instead you will study while drawing a real house.
First we start with the basics of SketchUp. It’s very important to know what tools are available for you and to apply these tools to perform certain tasks, and this is the main goal of this tutorial. Once you are experienced enough in using SketchUp tools you will be proposed to apply these tools to start drawing a house. In this lesson you will study how to prepare and import blueprints as the basis of your design, how to setup the software for easier work and finally how to outline and erect exterior walls.
So, let’s get started. Open SketchUp. You can see empty area with just a model of a person that is useful to keep drawing proportions. There are only about a dozen tools in SketchUp that covers all you need to draw a house, and you will study these tools during this lesson. Most of the tools that you need are on the Large Tool Set toolbar, please activate it by menu View/Toolbars/ Large Tool Set (Fig. 1). Please find some description of tools and shortcuts (solid circles denote default shortcut, dashed circle denotes manually added shortcut – see below how to do this) on Table 1 and Fig.2.
Using shortcuts will significantly boost your performance. But it’s up to you weather to memorize them. Instead, you can reach tools via toolbox. Go to menu Window/Preferences/Shortcuts if you need to manage shortcuts.
Now, let’s get to modeling. You probably have floor plans of your house – either made by architect or hand drawn by you. Depending on the format of those drawings (JPG, PNG, PDF, DWG/DXF etc.) the following procedure may change a little bit. Let’s consider raster graphics formats first as it’s the most common case that moreover requires some additional work in comparison to CAD formats like DWG/DXF.
Use drag&drop method to place the file with floor plan into SketchUp. Find the list of supported formats on the figure above. Alternatively, you can use Import… dialog under the menu file.
First of all, let’s specify units and precision. You don’t need to operate within the precision of 1mm or 1/16”, in building design reasonable precision is 1cm or 1”. Go to menu Window/Model info/Units.
If you work with inches – specify Inches as default units. Press <Enter> to apply changes. When you type dimensions in default units, you can omit unit sign. For instance, if your default units are Inches you can just enter 2’6 and SketchUp will interpret this to be 2’-6”. But you need to type 700mm because mm isn’t default unit. Turn on and setup length snapping to be 10mm or 1” to avoid fractional dimensions (like 2567mm) when drawing with mouse.
Let’s make this floor plan properly scaled so that we can outline structures, furniture – whatever is needed. With tool <T> press <CTRL> and measure current value of any known dimension – no mater interior or exterior. Try to use the largest dimension to minimize error. We may use 6330mm – width of the Living room. You will see as-measured dimension in the bottom left corner in the white text box. The current dimension is usually wrong. To specify true value just type that correct dimension (6330mm) right after you measured it. Note: do NOT try to place cursor in the text box – this won’t work. Just type.
Again, if you are using units that differs from default units (for example, model units are mm and you want to enter 14″), you need to type units as well right after numerical value. Possible dimensions to be typed are 1’2″, 2500mm, 2.5m etc. Do not type any spaces or dashes. You can omit units, in this case SketchUp presumes default model units.
So, you have typed correct dimension of the previously measured wall. Click Yes in pop-up to confirm scaling of the entire model and now you have your floor plan in real-world scale. To check this, measure again – you must obtain proper dimension.
Sketchup 3d Models
Now, let’s protect the floor plan from any occasional changes. <RIGHT CLICK>, Explode; <DBL CLICK> on face, <RIGHT CLICK>, Make group; <RIGHT CLICK>, Lock. Now you are unable to edit the floor plan picture – and you don’t need this.
Time to draw lines! Use tools “R, L, E” to outline exterior of the house. Use “X-Ray” style (in Styles tool box) to see floor plan behind shape you are drawing. Please note that SketchUp extensively uses snapping – when you hover mouse over points or edges SketchUp builds additional temporary construction lines that make drawing process easier. Now you have drawing similar like this:
Sketchup 3d Modeling Tutorial
Use “F” to specify walls thickness. Select your shape, press “F”, click, drag and drop, then type the wall thickness to give more precision (e.g. 300mm, or 12″) and press <ENTER>. If you are OK with approximate dimension, do nothing after you drop the mouse. This technics is common for all drawing tools in SketchUp.
Delete interior part by selecting internal surface and pressing DEL, or with “E” tool. In 3D view use “P” tool to specify height of the walls.
Resuming, now you have basic skills in SketchUp, you are able to import a picture as a substrate for your future house, scale that picture to obtain correct dimensions, outline and erect walls.
In the next lessons we will continue to work on this house. We will place openings, roof, porch and walkway – basically exterior of the house.